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College Basketball - Men's

ESPN College Sports Update

In a much anticipated women’s college basketball matchup, No. 2 Connecticut faces No. 1 Baylor on Sunday, Dec. 18 (8:30 p.m., ESPN). For the first time in program history, Baylor plays on its home court in front of an advanced sell-out crowd in the Ferrell Center. The women’s Final Four crew of Dave O’Brien, Doris Burke and Rebecca Lobo will call the game, with NBA analyst Jeff Van Gundy.

Junior center Brittney Griner leads the Lady Bears (10-0) averaging a double-double of 22.8 points and 10.7 rebounds per game. UConn (9-0) senior guard Tiffany Hayes is second in scoring for the Huskies at 14.4 points per game, and first in rebounding, taking down 6.2 boards per contest.

ESPN.com’s Mechelle Voepel previews the Connecticut-Baylor matchup, in addition to writing live from the game for ESPN.com and espnW:

While nothing is replacing Tennessee-UConn as that longtime rivalry in women’s hoops, UConn-Baylor has at least some of the same elements as two colorful coaches lead a Southern program against a Northern program.

The rivalry game features No. 1 vs. No. 2 for the second straight year, however, last season the rankings were reversed and the game was played in Hartford. The then-top ranked Huskies defeated No. 2 Baylor 65-64 on Nov. 16.

This year’s Heisman Trophy Presentation on Saturday, Dec. 10, was the second most viewed and highest rated telecast with an average of 4,603,000 total viewers, 3,294,000 households and a 3.3 rating. The show dedicated to the announcement of college football’s most prestigious award, won by Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III, marked increases of 22% (vs. 3,784,000), 24% (vs. 2,657,000) and 22% (vs. 2.7), respectively, over last year.

ESPN’s most-viewed and highest-rated Heisman telecast, dating back to 1994 when the network first televised the event exclusively, was in 2009 when it averaged a 5,990,000 viewers, 4,045,000 households and a 4.1 rating.

ESPN College GameDay Built by The Home Depot, in its 25th year and 22nd season on the road, posted its most-watched season ever. The show averaged 1,720,000 households and 2,068,000 viewers each week. The November 12 show from The Oval at Stanford University (2.1 for 2,045,000 households and 2,493,000 viewers) was the season’s highest-rated show and second highest-rated ever.

College GameDay will take a break during the holidays but will be back in action starting Monday, Jan. 2, 2012 with full coverage of the 98th Rose Bowl Game Presented by VIZIO and all the BCS Bowls. A full schedule will be announced soon.

For now, fans can relive some of the season’s best GameDay commercials with these comical outtakes posted at collegegameday.com.

Then-unranked, Indiana topped then-No. 1 Kentucky 73-72 on a Christian Watford 3-pointer at the buzzer Saturday, Dec. 10 and ESPN was there to capture the exciting game. Since the win, the Hoosiers entered the ESPN/USA Today top 25 coaches poll at No. 20, and are ranked for the first time since March 2008.

Uh oh? Last Saturday, ESPN televised the toptwo men’s basketball teams in road games and both lost (No. 1 Kentucky to Indiana and No. 2 Ohio State to No. 13 Kansas).

ESPN and ESPN2 will combine to televise the current top two teams this Saturday, and once again, both on the road: No. 1 Syracuse at NC State (6:30 p.m., ESPN2) and No. 2 Ohio State at South Carolina (noon, ESPN)

ESPN will televise action from the NCAA Division I, II and III football championships on Friday, Dec. 16 and Saturday, Dec. 17.

The NCAA Division I Football Championship semifinals will begin Friday with Montana at Sam Houston State (8 p.m., ESPN & ESPN3) and on Saturday, Georgia Southern plays at North Dakota State (2:30 p.m., ESPNU & ESPN3)